Was Ted James Johnson Jr. a con man who swindled investment clients out of millions of dollars?

Or was the one-time Giles County Circuit Court clerk and commissioner of the revenue in effect conned himself -- drawn into desperate financial straits by the lure of poorly understood investments similar to those causing havoc on Wall Street?

As what is scheduled to be a three-week jury trial began Monday in Roanoke's federal court, Johnson's attorney Tony Anderson drew parallels to recent financial turmoil. He described some of Johnson's actions as a sort of precursor to the subprime mortgage crisis and promised to educate jurors on debt derivatives and other exotic investment vehicles that he termed a "pathway to destruction."

Assistant U.S. Attorney Jennie Waering told jurors the case was not so complicated, describing it as "simple ... about lies, deceit and trust."

Johnson, 58, was one of two men named last year in a 42-count indictment that included accusations of mail fraud, securities fraud, conspiracy to launder money, being an unregistered commodity pool operator and more.

Johnson's former bookkeeper and fellow defendant Frank Graham Farrier Jr. pleaded guilty earlier this month and is expected to testify in Johnson's trial.

Waering told jurors other evidence is likely to include stacks of records about the operation of Mountain Investments and Dogwood Farms, two companies that Johnson and Farrier ran, and into which investors poured millions of dollars.

Prosecutors say that money was not invested, but instead went toward Farrier's and Johnson's personal expenses. In a Ponzi scheme, the two men used money from recent investors to pay those who had invested earlier, maintaining an illusion of returns.

Prosecutors have said that starting in 1992, more than 80 people were drawn to invest by Farrier's and Johnson's promises of rates of return of 17 percent to 25 percent or more. Neither of the men was properly registered to conduct the sorts of transactions they told investors they would carry out, the indictment said.

Excerpts of a personal journal that Johnson kept were shown on courtroom screens Monday. They indicated that Johnson did not start trading until 1999, seven years after he began taking in money, and that profits were elusive.

Supported by statements in the journal, Waering said Johnson was on a yearslong hunt for an investment system that would work regardless of whether markets were up or down. He attended seminars around the country, and his journal contained numerous despairing notes about the failure of one supposed system after another.

"Like a gambler who couldn't quit, Ted Johnson couldn't stop looking for that trading system that would make him millions," Waering said.

After years of taking in money as Mountain Investments, Johnson and Farrier began trying to pay off investors with deeds of trust on 216 acres near the then-new Pearisburg Wal-Mart, Wearing said. Eventually the deeds of trust far outstripped the value of the land, although Anderson said that value would have been increased if Johnson could have subdivided it.

Prosecutors were unable to determine exactly how much investors lost because the two companies' business extended past record-keeping requirements.

In 2004, Johnson, Farrier and Dogwood Farms were forced into bankruptcy by creditors and said their debts to investors topped $8 million.